The man who helped create Quicktime, sold Web TV to Microsoft, and made a run at streaming video games with the ill-fated OnLive says that he has developed a cell phone technology that is 1000 times faster than current phones.

Steve Perlman, a real inventor’s inventor, calls the tech pCell because it generates a personal cell phone signal that users don’t have to share. He hopes to get wireless carriers to jump on the new standard. That would involve upgrading the antenna infrastructure, which Perlman says could start as early as this year. Of course, the carriers would have to be willing, and therein lies the rub as Wired’s Cade Metz points out:

“In business, there is money in scarcity,” says Richard Doherty, director of a technology consulting firm called Envisioneering, who has closely followed Perlman’s project. “The wireless business models of today are based on scarcity. Opening up the floodgates for any service, for any carrier, has tremendous implications. In our experiences working with carriers…they like to have everything defined on their terms, to have breakthroughs arrive when they want them to.”

Upgrading infrastructure is no small task, so don’t expect a non-carrier to come in and make bid to become a player.